Friday, June 25, 2010

The Beliefs!

In this article,first I will try to treat the 'beliefs' and their 'power' from asecular point of view by remaining in the frame of 'Cartesian rationality'and then I will conclude it with a scientific standpoint. For this I wouldreview the films 'The Exorcist' and the 'Omen' trilogy.

To understand father Merrin on the archelogical site in Iraq and thefinding of the statuette 'resembling a grimacing bestial creature' hetook for the 'devil' icon, I should take into consideration the christianreferencial basis of beliefs which includes the concepts such as godversus satan or devil, christ versus antichrist, angels versus demons,light versus darkness and so on. Why father Merrin has been so impressed by that statuette? Heentered it into his cultural background and estimated it through hisbeliefs and gave to it an extraordinary dimension with an extraordinarypower. While this same statuette for all the people living and workingthere was just an insignificant piece of stone or maybe for some justa representation of an ugly 'djinn' and nothing more. This piece of stone which had not any inherent meaning in itself,'destabilized' father Merrin's peace of mind and he began to interpretany human face or shape or any event as a warning or an alarm ofthe threatening presence of the 'devil'. Then when he went to a spotwhere a 'strange' statue which had almost the same head than thestatuette was standing , he stood face-to-face with that icon to measure his own strength with it. Father Merrin because of his archeologicalknowledge, knew that the icon was 'Pazuzu' or the king of 'demons' inthe old beliefs of ancient babylonians, and he felt his own 'weakness' or'failure' in front of that stone, not because he was old or because he hadheart disease but because of his 'beliefs'. By the same 'beliefs', hecondemned himself to death , just because he overestimated that stoneicon.

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Why do some insignificant objects carry such a meaning, power or athreatening message? Do they really have such a power or this is justour interpretation which attribute to them an extreme dimension ? Whydo some shapes, some faces, some colours, some animals or anythingaround us become suddenly so 'charged' of meaning or power ? Why dosuperstitions in all cultures and all societies are so strong and so extendedthat they mostly take control of people's mind and life ? Do objects havea 'spirit' ? Are we able to see or to feel the 'spirit' of objects, shapes, faces,animals or colours ? Isn't the root of all of the superstitions quite simply a 'fear' located in thedepths of our mind and related to our survival instincts ? What is our majorterror ? The fear of death isn't our main weaknes and our principalconcern? Aren't we easily affraid of anything which could put in dangerour life and our possessions and the life of our beloved ones ? How can we escape something which is inevitable? Why should we fearsomething which is a principal piece of the order of the Universe ?Isn't it better to extract once forever the poison from the scorpion in orderto remain invulnerable and safe of its bite and 'living' our life in peace ? Why not being accustomed and familiarized with all the shapes 'death'could take to bring us ? One of the benefits of all the horror moviesproduced ever since is to picturing all sort of imaginable ways theliving creatures could die, perish or disappear . Instead of fearingthousands millions kind of 'horrible' deaths which are awaiting for usat each 'dreadful' moment or at each corner we might face, isn't it betterto embrace peacefully just one which is an inevitable part of our humancondition ?

Father Merrin 'feared' that 'devilish' statue and letted it to prevail onhim and his life and to take control over his mind. But despite of hispoor health and old ages , nothing 'bad' happened to him in Iraq , buthis concern about his imminent death allowed to the statue to transmita 'message' to him :"see you later in Georgetown!". Why did father Merrin letted this to happen in Regan's room inGeorgetown? Could it be avoided? Weren't his own beliefs and thestressed they produced in that ritual of exorcism in Regan's room themain cause of his heart attack and not necessarily his old ages andhis poor health ?

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On the other hand we have people who take easy everything in thisworld. Life and death are just indifferent to them. They see things in avery simple way , a wall is just a wall, a cat just a pet and a crow a bird,black or white has no particular meaning to them. They perform thetasks or the duties of their daily life very easily in an absolute simplicity,they eat, marry, procreate and die in a total peace of mind. This poem of Stephen Crane is an example of an absolute resignationto embrace death in this way or in any other way it could happen :A youth in apparel that glitterredWent to walk in a grim forestThere he met an assassinAttired all in garb of old days;He, scowling through the thickets,And dagger poised quivering,Rushed upon the youth."Sir", said the latter,"I am enchanted, believe me,To die, thus,In this mediaeval fashion,According to the best legends;Ah, what joy!"Then took he the wound, smiling,And died, content.

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Based on all my personal experiences in life, what I have seen, reador heard, I can tell that we have two categories of people or livingcreatures : the lucky and the unlucky ones. The lucky category spendsthe whole temporal life without the least trouble, accident or misfortunein the opposite of the misfortunate ones. Chris MacNeil, Regan, father Karras and his mother in 'The Exorcist'film were among the unlucky people as well as Robert and Richard Thorn in the 'Omen' trilogy. Chris MacNeil was a famous and wealthy actress living with herdaughter Regan in Georgetown. Who could imagine or predict thatsuch a woman would get through of such an horrible experience? Wasshe a bad person , guilty of something or a criminal for having deservedsuch a 'fate'? Why she and her daughter who had absolutely nothing todo with anything in the archeological site in Iraq , have been 'chosen' forsuch a cruel trial ? They even hadn't some religious beliefs, angels anddemons, devil and god were too far from their daily life and didn't havea place in their cultural background. Robert Thorn and his wife Kathy were good,loyal,honest and rationalpeople as well as Richard Thorn and his wife. Nothing could predictthat such a 'curse' or 'malediction' would exhaust them in a way thatthey would become suddenly 'crazy' or 'criminal'. Why do some superstitions and rumors are so powerful that they caneradicate a whole family and all its members ? If for the Thorn dynastypolitical issues and interests made them the target of all sort of disasters,what about Chris MacNeil and her daughter Regan? What about fatherKarras and his mother ? Many women in the world are divorced andmany children are raised by a single parent, but not all become depressed or mentally ill . Many people around the world , religious ornot are descended from immigrant parents , but not all are as sensitiveand vulnerable as father Karras was. The irony of the circumstances is that father Karras as a priest hada rational way of thinking in the opposite of the men and women ofscience in the psychiatry hospital who suggested to Chris to try the'exorcism' , while father Karras proposed six months of care andobservation for Regan in the best hospital Chris could find. Chris MacNeil in her desperation was ready to hang on to any strange, disused and magic method to save Regan. Anyway the badluck gathered the misfortunate people in the household of Chris andin the room of Regan. Father Merrin anticipating his imminent deathbecause of 'the prevalence of Pazuzu', father Karras because his guiltfeelings and depressive state of mind caused by the death of hismother and Regan because of her mental illness common amongmost teen-agers. Then happened what happened : father Merrin in hisstruggle to free Regan from 'Pazuzu', perished, father Karras, already'suicidal', sacrificed himself by chalanging the 'demon' to enter intohis body, hurled himself through the window and Regan was apparentlyrestored to health.

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Damien Thorn was just a nice and healthy baby boy adopted by theambassador. Since the moment a child is born, he or she would beunder the observation of the surrounding world.The parents, the familymembers, the friends, the neighbours and sometimes a vast region ora country, depending of the social and economical statut of the parents.Some wicked people could spread rumors out of jealousy, some otherswould find something abnormal in the look, the body shape or thebehaviour of the child, and some superstitious ones would put the labelof 'cursed' or 'blessed' on the child. Other crazy people by believingthe superstitions would be able to commit any sort of crime. We are raised under the look of the others and we learn since thechildhood to look at ourselves as someone the others considered orexpected and this becomes our second nature. The power ofautosuggestion is potentially both destructive and constructive. If wespread the rumor that a person is 'cursed', 'spellbinder', 'demonic', the'devil', or the 'son of devil', he or she would progressively believe thatand would behave according to what has been 'expected'. Damien wassimply a nice little boy the entourage took him for the 'beast' or 'the sonof devil' because of the superstitions and mostly because of politicalinterests. The number 666 is just a number or a shape , it could be 999or 111. Many people around the world have some skin stains whichcould be interpreted as a number or as a shape which have no meaningin themselves or in their essence. Damien just played the role theothers expected from him and it was a deadly game for this poor child. Something is sure that we humans we all have in our subconsciousthe potential for goodness and badness depending on which one hasbeen stressed or raised by the parents, the family and the entourage,we espouse one to the detriment of the other. This is what happened toDamien, he has been so involved in this kind of beliefs or superstitionsthat he never found the opportunity to think independantly for himself andabout himself in all 'lucidity. Maybe we all have a sort of duality orthe syndrome of 'dr.jekyll and mr.hyde' struggling within us. The awareand lucid people try to face and to control this duality . As Plato suggested,we human beings are the rider of a chariot run by two different sort ofhorses, one, wild and rebel and the other obedient and peaceful, theskill and the competence of the rider would determine how to establish the equilibrium between these two kind of horses.

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To conclude this article I have to mention that if we limit our thoughtsand understanding to the 'Cartesian rationality' , we would consequentlyneglect and ignore the scientific basis of the phenomena. From thephysics and chemistry standpoint, all elements, all molecules, all atomsin the universe are in permanent interactions and emit energy. If we takeinto consideration the amont of energy released at each 'second' in thewhole universe , maybe we would find an explanation for the 'paranormal'phenomenum and events in happening in this or that 'place'. At eachmoment we are exposed to multiple electromagnetic fields emitted byvarious sources. The positive and negative fields of energy affect allof us at each moment and maybe we would be able to replace thesuperstitions by some scientific explanation of everything. The quantumphysics is the most promising to give logical arguments to explainphenomena and maybe they would help us to avoid having this orthat 'extreme' reaction, path or way of behaviour and maybe we wouldsucceed to manage our 'spiritual struggles'.6/24/2010